


Jon Scars

by Onehelluvapilot



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 15:04:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19253602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onehelluvapilot/pseuds/Onehelluvapilot
Summary: A reflection on the scars Jon Snow has acquired over the years and what they mean to him.





	Jon Scars

His name might as well have been Jon Scar with how many he had. He could trace most of his life through them. Some mattered more than others. They taught him and hurt him and reminded him of some things he didn't want to forget and some he wished he could. He counted them, sometimes, on both the good days and the bad.

There was a cut on his arm from when, as boys, he and Robb had been wrestling and had rolled down a steep hill by mistake. He remembers not understanding why Lady Catelyn, the woman his brothers and sisters called Mother, fussed over Robb's less severe bruises while ignoring his blood.

From his childhood, there was also a dog bite, scraped knees, and nicks where he cut himself shaving.

The first scar he earned, though, was seared across his hand where he had grabbed a lantern to throw at the Wight in Castle Black. That had been the start of it all. The scar itself was small, faded to just a discolored line of skin across his palm. Years later though, after the end of it all, he still ran a thumb over it everyday before he put on his gloves. It was the line he imagined the hilt of Long Claw fitting into every time he raised it. It was, in many ways, the scar that made him. Each of them, the ones that mattered, meant something, but this had been the one that started it all.

There were tiny white crescent scars that Ygritte carved into him with her nails. He wished he had more of those.

The scars on his face were the ones he was known by, though very few knew how he got them. Oddly enough, they meant very little to him. Mostly he was glad the eagle hadn't carved out his eyes.

The arrow wounds that followed, though, those meant something. He could've learned something from those scars. Duty is the death of love. He chose to forget.

The Wildling attack on the Wall and Castle Black only left scar tissue on his heart.

The fight at Craster's Keep brought his next physical scar, a knife wound in his hip. He learned then that sometimes he would have to fight dirty to win. He rarely did.

He had trouble with his right knee after Hardhome. The fall from the loft of the house, with the White Walker after him, had more of an impact than he originally felt. His limp came back in times of stress, once the adrenaline wore off.

The cuts that killed him were never so much scars as open wounds. They never healed, and he suspected they never would. But they never hurt, either. The cold and the shock had numbed the pain at first, though not the betrayal, and after he came back, the wounds were from a different life. It was as if they happened to someone else. He could see them and touch them, but he never felt them. That, at least, was something to be thankful for.

The Battle of the Bastards left him no new scars. He re-injured the knee he first hurt at Hardhome and bruised his ribs when he was nearly suffocated beneath his own soldiers' boots, but nothing lasted. He was glad there was nothing to remember it by. The nightmares were bad enough.

The fight on the frozen lake, too small and with too few casualties to be considered a battle, left him cold more than anything else. A couple of his toes got frostbite and never recovered completely.

He escaped unscathed from the Battle of Winterfell. It didn't feel right that he should have no scars to mark the passing of the Night King.

Likewise with King's Landing and Daenerys. The Unsullied soldiers didn't even rough him up when they threw him in jail. It almost felt that with no physical marker, he would forget it happened. His scars were his memory.

When he found Ghost again, the direwolf's own wounds had mostly healed. He was still missing most of his right ear, and deep slashes were carved into his shoulder. His eyes were still red though, so it was alright. As Jon and Ghost headed North, he wondered how many new scars they'd each pick up before the end.

**Author's Note:**

> If it seems like I put less effort into the last section, it's because I'm mirroring what the showriters did.  
> I still love comments though. Please tell me if I forgot any scars.


End file.
